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As a Bucks County native I am disappointed to
learn that our current Congressman, Patrick Murphy, not only is
supportive of a measure that would do just that, but is also a
co-sponsor of such legislation. Murphy is a member of the
Conservative Blue Dog Democrat caucus which is why I am perplexed by
his support of this legislation. One of the most troubling features
of the wrongly named “Employee Free Choice Act” (EFCA) is that it
would take away choice, not add choice. This legislation if passed by
both houses of Congress and signed into law by President Obama, who
has promised to do just that, would eliminate the choice for American
workers to vote in elections to determine if they would like a private
organization to represent them in contract negotiations with their
employer. Millions of American workers would be denied the right to
choose at all.
Instead
this legislation would allow a process called “card check” to occur
which would enable members of private organizations to simply collect
signatures of employees within an organization who would like to have
this private organization represent them in labor negotiations. The
union representatives would only need to collect the signatures of 50%
plus one of the employees to have a new union formed, but the catcher
is that there is no end time in this process and once they had a
signature card signed the employee would not be able to change their
mind on whether they wanted to be represented or not, even if it was
years later.
In one
sense this legislation would turn the process of deciding whether or
not to form a union into a never ending election whereby once the
union got to 50% plus one a local union was formed. It would not
matter if after 1000 straight days of campaigning they never got over
50%, if on the 1001 day they did the election was over and they won.
Just imagine if that is how we selected our members of Congress? So
once elected Congressman Murphy would then be subjected to “card
check” and an opponent would start collecting signatures door to door
and when he or she got more than 50% of the voters to sign a card,
even after a few years, the Congressman would have to vacate his seat
immediately. Something tells me most incumbent members of Congress
would vote against a provision like this if it applied to them and
certainly there would not be a long list of co-sponsors as we see with
EFCA.
The other
troubling provision is that this legislation would also insert the
federal government into many contract negotiations between private
entities such as a private business and a private labor organization
if as little as 90 days went by in contract negotiations without
resolution. If passed one can assure that labor unions would not
agree to any contract for which they did not agree with 100% as they
would rather have an unelected arbitrator rule on the contract and
have the government force a private employer, even small companies
with as little as 10 employees, to give into almost every single
demand. The government then would set the wages, benefits, promotion
rules and work assignments for millions of companies. Given our
current economic crisis this would further put the nail into the
coffin of American small business just to satisfy the wishes of the
most powerful special interest groups in the United States, groups
such as SEIU, AFL-CIO, and the UAW.
Many can
clearly see that this legislation is simply a way for certain
politicians to reward the above mentioned groups for spending over
$450 million last year on political activities for which they
benefited as more unionized workers equals more money to union bosses
and greater political power through the exponential growth of union
PAC coffers. Of course this turns into a viscous cycle as the money
then goes back to reward these same politicians.
Congressman Murphy needs to explain to his constituents in the 8th
Congressional district how this legislation benefits the average
taxpayer and business owner. At present I do not see any benefits
only likely negative effects as many workers will lose their ability
to vote on whether they would like to forgo a percentage of their
wages to union bosses each week and Bucks County businesses will
either eliminate jobs or close up shop entirely because of government
imposed labor contracts. This could not be a worse time to vote to
pass this type of anti-free market capitalism legislation. I do hope
he reconsiders the effects of this bill.
Robert L.
Ciervo, Ph.D., is the Director of the Rutgers-Camden Learning Center
and Vice Chairman of the Newtown Township Board of Supervisors.
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